by Carrie-May Siggins
Halifax-raised band Sloan is playing in Regina tonight as part of their Twice Removed Tour.
The tour is celebrating the 18th anniversary of the release of the album, which they’ll be playing in its entirety.
It’s now the stuff of Canadian music legend- “Twice Removed” was at first rejected by Geffen, the band’s label at the time. The album was bright and pop-y and melodic, nothing like Sloan’s first grungy album or the grinding noise of hit-makers Nirvana at the time. Geffen asked the band to re-record the LP, which they refused to do. As a result, Geffen didn’t promote it when it was released in 1994, and then dropped the band.
But over time the album built up a strong critical response in Canada. Single “Coax Me” spent 12 weeks in the Top 10o. In 1996, it was voted best Canadian album of all time by readers of the music magazine Chart (now online and called ChartAttack), and in 1998, it went gold. The album ranked 14th in Bob Mersereau’s book The top 100 Canadian Albums.
Alan Cross is a music writer based in Toronto. He says that, along with Geffen, Canadian fans were surprised by the change in direction from Sloan’s first album to their second.
“But there was something charming in this Beatle-esque left turn,” says Cross. “Maybe Sloan wasn’t a bunch of grunge copycats after all. The fresh pop sensibilities of the songs won people over rather quickly. And it’s this Canadian support that prevented the band from flying apart completely.”
--taken from: Metro News Regina
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